1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to an apparatus and method for preparing data to generate a simulation model and a program thereof, and more particularly to an apparatus and method for preparing data to generate a simulation model which prepare data for use in generating a simulation model of a product required when a simulation is performed for a product to be processed, and a program for preparing data to generate a simulation model for use in realizing the method for preparing data to generate a simulation model.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, when a product is designed, a designing process can be supported by performing a simulation in many cases.
Depending on the purpose of a simulation, a simulation can be performed in a part unit, but it may be necessary to perform a simulation on the entire product.
For example, according to the social restrictions on electronic equipment, it is prohibited to discharge unnecessary radio waves or noise exceeding a predetermined level, and various countermeasures such as shielding technology, filtering technology and so on have been devised to satisfy the radio wave standards. In this situation, it is necessary to perform a quantitative simulation about to what extent the technologies can reduce the radio waves.
With the background described above, the applicant of the present invention has disclosed a series of inventions of performing a simulation of the electromagnetic intensity emitted from electronic equipment using method of moment (for example, refer to the patent document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 10-319069).
When the electromagnetic intensity emitted from electronic equipment is simulated, a simulation model of a printed plate forming part of electronic equipment is incorporated in a simulation model of a housing forming part of the electronic equipment, and a simulation is performed as if actual electronic equipment were present.
Thus, when a product is simulated, a simulation is not performed in a unit of a part (part such as a housing, a printed plate and so on) forming the product, but performed in a condition that the product is formed by putting all parts together.
On the other hand, when a product is simulated, a simulation model corresponding to the purpose of the simulation is generated.
For example, a simulation model corresponding to the simulation is generated by, for example, extracting only metal portions of the parts forming a product, dividing an obtained product model into meshes, and generating a simulation model.
The conventional simulations have been performed mainly in a part unit.
Conventionally, when the entire product performed by putting a plurality of parts together is simulated, a part model is generated by extracting metal portions from the CAD (Computer Aided Design) data of each part, then a simulation operator manually puts the generated part models together, thereby generating a simulation model of the product.
As a simulation of a parts arrangement of a product, the technology of displaying the drawings of the shapes of the hands of an operator for the operation during the assembly of the desired parts on a screen, arranging the drawings near the assembly displayed on the screen, and studying the reservation of the space required for the assembly operation has been disclosed (for example, refer to the patent document 2: Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 10-034458).
As described above, in the conventional technology, when the entire product formed by putting a plurality of parts together is simulated, a part model is generated by extracting metal portions from the CAD data of each part, then a simulation operator manually puts the generated part models, and the simulation model of the product is generated.
A simulation model of a product is generated by, for example, incorporating the printed plate of the product into the housing model of the product as if an actual product were assembled. However, it is a laborious operation to assemble a part model.
That is, a simulation generally requires an enormous computation. Therefore, when a simulation model is generated, a simulation model corresponding to the purpose of the simulation is practically generated, and the portions not directly affecting the simulation are to be simplified, thereby reducing the computation of the simulation.
Since the part model can be simplified for the reason described above, the fine parts such as a screw, a screw hole, a boss and so on are removed in generating a part model.
Thus, when a part model is assembled according to the conventional technology, useful marks for alignment are missing. Therefore, it is necessary to display the part model and perform alignment while checking the alignment process, but it is a very laborious operation.